The wraiths didn’t wait for the party to move.
They surged forward as one, becoming like a tide of jagged glass and light.
Dozens of glowing blue eyes flared within the swarm, and their screeches pierced the air.
"Form up!" Sebastian roared, spinning his giant axe in a defensive circle that split the first wave clean in two. "Watch your flanks!"
Wade didn’t need the command. He was already charging forward. His boots cracked through the stones beneath his feet, Toothpick tight in his grip.
He knew what kind of wraiths these were now that the second ring had fallen. They were the reflective wraiths, capable of reflecting attacks.
The first reflective wraith ca at him low, its body slim and glimring, and its movents unnaturally fast. It lunged, claws extended.
Wade swung in a wide horizontal arc. The hamr side of Toothpick t the creature in the air.
The impact exploded through the clearing, scattering glass shards that glinted in the sunlight into the air.
"Next!" Wade bellowed.
Two more ca from either side, bounding along the cracked marble path. Wade twisted his body, spinning the weapon like a staff.
He struck the first in the chest, then reversed the motion, catching the second in the head. Both shattered instantly.
From the corner of his eye, Ingrid loosed an arrow that split into three glowing projectiles midair. Each struck a wraith dead center, their bodies erupting in bright flares of reflected light.
"Keep your distance!" she called out. "The reflected attacks will catch you if you’re careless!"
Wade grinned in response. "Got it."
A wraith lunged at him from the right. He t it halfway, burying his axe into its torso, but before he could pull away, the reflection sent the force back at him in a burst of fla-like light.
The explosion hurled him back several feet, sending him crashing into the ground a distance away.
"Wade!" Rowan shouted, flicking his staff. A wave of kinetic force shot forward, knocking several wraiths off their feet before they could swarm Wade.
"I’m fine!" Wade grunted, pushing himself up. His breastplate had taken most of the damage, though scorch marks now lined the edges of his armor. "Damn things reflect everything, huh?"
Sebastian grunted as he cleaved another wraith in half. "Hit them hard enough to break through the reflection!"
"Fine by ," Wade muttered, tightening his grip. "I like it close and ssy."
He teleported straight back into the fray, appearing behind one of the wraiths clawing towards Ingrid.
His swing ca down fast and rciless, cracking the wraith’s spine and scattering its fragnts.
Another ca at him from behind. He didn’t turn.
He simply reversed his grip and jabbed backwards, the hamr end crunching through the creature’s abdon. It collapsed in a spray of glass dust.
Rowan stood farther back, using his staff like a wizard, sending bursts of air and sound to control the battlefield.
Each strike staggered the advancing wraiths, slowing their movents just long enough for Sebastian to tear through them with brute force.
Ingrid darted through the chaos, her movents graceful, each arrow she loosed piercing the cracks already made in Wade or Sebastian’s strikes. Her accuracy was rciless, and she didn’t waste a single shot.
But even with their coordination, the wave of wraiths didn’t slow.
For every three that fell, five more crawled from the edges of the crystal grove. They spilled over the fountain and climbed over the glittering hedges, shrieking, claws raking at the air.
Wade swung his weapon again and again, the heavy thuds of impact punctuating the air like thunder.
One wraith leapt at him, claws catching on his shoulder, but his Dragon Plate breastplate absorbed the blow.
The claws screeched against it like tal on stone, and Wade brought his elbow down hard, crushing the creature’s face.
It shattered, pieces scattering across the ground.
Another landed on his chest, snarling as it tried to tear through his armor. He slamd a knee into its abdon and bashed it across the skull with Toothpick. Shards flew everywhere.
"More coming!" Rowan shouted. "From the north side!"
Wade glanced up to see several wraiths bounding across the tops of the crystal trees like glass-bodied panthers. The sun caught on their jagged limbs, blinding him briefly as they descended.
He threw himself into a roll, barely missing a claw that carved a trench through the marble where he’d been standing.
He ca up swinging, Toothpick crushing the nearest one into shards before recalling it through another wraith’s skull.
The weapon’s return strike cracked through its head, sending another burst of shards scattering.
Wade grinned, breathless. "You’re not getting through ."
There was a sudden rush of movent and Wade turned, only to find two wraiths lunging directly at him from opposite sides.
He t the first with a sideways swing, crushing it in the air, but the second one hit his flank.
The impact threw him sideways into a broken pillar. His shoulder flared with pain, but he pushed through it, spinning and bringing the hamr down in a vicious counterattack.
The second wraith shattered instantly.
But the other wraiths weren’t letting up.
More poured in, their numbers doubling, and for every one that fell, their glass-like bodies scattered across the floor, turning it into a deathtrap of reflections.
It beca harder to tell which figures were real and which were illusions.
One lunged from behind. Wade ducked, sweeping his axe low and catching it in the knees. It fell to the ground, and he stomped hard, crushing its head.
Another jumped straight onto his back. He felt its claws dig in, scraping at his pauldrons.
He reached back, grabbed it by the neck, and slamd it into the ground hard enough to shatter it completely.
He looked up just in ti to see a wave of them charging towards him. Six, maybe seven.
"Co on then," he muttered. "Let’s see what you’ve got."
He stepped forward, swinging with both hands. Toothpick blurred, a storm of strikes.
He crushed one, then two, then three. A fourth got close enough to rake across his chest, but his Dragon Plate absorbed the hit again. He responded by smashing its face in.
"Wade!" Rowan shouted sowhere behind him. "Pull back, they’re regrouping—!"
But it was too late.
Above them,dozens of wraiths had crawled up the trees, gathering on the thick crystalline branches.
Wade barely had a second to look up before they dropped, becoming a rain of glimring glass and claws.
He swung once, twice, breaking the first few apart, but there were too many.
They landed on him all at once, their bodies piling, their claws scraping, and their bodies writhing as they dragged him down. His armor screeched under the weight.
"Wade!" Ingrid shouted, firing arrows into the swarm, but there were too many.
He hit the ground hard, his vision filled with blue light and glinting shards. He tried to swing again, but their sheer number pinned him down.
Their weight crushed the air from his lungs, and the only sound he could hear was the shrill, distorted screeching of the wraiths as they buried him beneath their bodies.
Then the light dimd, his vision filled with glass and shadow, and Wade disappeared beneath the swarm.
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